Cuomo's NY Job Program Creates 408 - Around And About One Walmart Store

There're a number of things that governments are really pretty good at. I'm perfectly happy with their monopoly of legitimate aggressive violence myself. There're also a number of things that they're really not very good at - Mom's apple pie ain't gonna change whoever is in the White or State House. And it would appear that one of the things that government isn't very good at is creating jobs. For we've got the result of Andrew Cuomo's lovely jobs and startup plan for New York. Which has created some 408 jobs. To put this in perspective that's about the number that Walmart employs in the average store. Leading to a modest proposal. Why not stop spending the taxpayers' money on something that government isn't very good at and instead just get out of the way and let private sector companies do their stuff?

In fact, in many parts of the country it would actually be simpler to get government to stop doing what it currently does so that Walmart could open a store and employ 400 people.

One of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s most highly promoted economic development initiatives has produced just 408 new jobs across New York State in the past two years, even as the state has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting it, according to a delayed report released on Friday afternoon.

You know when something's bad news in this trade. Reports that come out on Friday afternoons, especially in the summer, are things that those releasing the report would really prefer no one took much note of. Perhaps by Monday the news caravan will have moved on and no one will really have understood?

The program, Start-Up NY, uses tax-free zones at colleges and universities to attract companies. The report says 159 businesses and their employees have received $1.19 million in tax benefits so far while investing $13 million in the economy. The state also set aside up to $175 million for in-state and out-of-state advertising and marketing campaigns to promote Start-Up NY as well as Cuomo's economic development proposals.

Seventy-six jobs were created in 2014, Start-Up's first full year, and another 332 last year.

There's also that other little clue when the PR budget is vastly larger than the program budget. This means that this is politics, about burnishing the vote gaining abilities of those proposing the plan rather than actually doing anything about the economy or jobs. We might even think that not taking $175 million off the taxpayers of New York in the first place would create more than 408 jobs.

Actually, at over $400,000 per job created yes, we would. For not taxing is fiscal stimulus, just as spending is. And a stimulus cost of under $400,000 a job would accord rather well with the standard models of this sort of thing.

That is, as a first order approximation at least, we would think that we would all be better off if government and Cuomo had done absolutely nothing here at all. King Log being better than King Stork as we might put it. True, I often think that matters are so, that getting government to do less would make us better off but this looks like a pretty clear case where the numbers really do stack up.

The program, one of Gov. Andrew Cuomo's highly touted initiatives, gives new and expanding businesses the opportunity to operate tax-free for 10 years if they set up shop in designated zones on or near eligible university or college campuses, or other tracts specifically selected for such development. The benefit covers business, corporate, sales, property, state and local taxes as well as franchise fees, plus income taxes for the companies and all their employees.

Here's another thought. If being relieved of those tax obligations is considered to be such a benefit to businesses why not relieve all businesses of such obligations? We all know that business never actually pays tax anyway, there's only us human beings here to carry the burden so the burden always falls on us human beings whoever is writing the check. But leave aside that rather more contentious piece of economic theory.

Can we all agree that this isn't a good way to spend money? In which case let's not do this and just leave the money to fructify in the pockets of the populace in the first place?